Highlights include the world premiere of Leaning Out, a documentary about the Twin Towers engineer Leslie E. Robertson, and the U.S. premiere of Renzo Piano: Architect of Light.

The documentary Enough White Teacups, which will be screened at the Architecture & Design Film Festival, explores designs that address challenges in sustainability, such as the Mine Kafon ball, a mine-clearing device by Afghan brothers Massoud and Mahmud Hassani. Courtesy Michelle Bauer Carpenter

If you ask Kyle Bergman, founder of the Architecture & Design Film Festival (ADFF), he’ll say that architects talk among themselves too much. Movies, says Bergman, an architect himself, are a perfect opportunity to open up the conversation.

Now in its tenth year, the ADFF will run in New York City from October 16 to 21. But organizing a program of film showings, Q&As, and panel discussions that can appeal to both design professionals and the general public is no easy feat. The ADFF team screened over 300 films before whittling the selection to more than 30 movies. Highlights include the world premiere of Leaning Out, a documentary about the Twin Towers engineer Leslie E. Robertson, and the U.S. premiere of Renzo Piano: Architect of Light, which traces the Italian architect’s development of the Centro Botín museum in Santander, Spain, completed last year.

Basia Myszynski, who directed Leaning Out with Leonard Myszynski, hopes the movie will catalyze a dialogue about architecture and social responsibility. “Despite 9/11, despite everything, [Robertson] is a man that really stands up for what he believes in and that’s the story we wanted to share,” she says.

Many of the films focus on social and political themes, notes Bergman: “This year more than ever seems like the year to be politically active in everything we do.”